[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-2250075266.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
To receive\u00a0Morning Links\u00a0in your inbox every weekday,\u00a0sign\u00a0up\u00a0for our\u00a0<\/em>Breakfast with ARTnews\u00a0newsletter<\/em>.<\/p>\n The Headlines<\/strong><\/p>\n HISTORIC VOTE. <\/strong>France\u2019s lower house of parliament, the National Assembly<\/strong>, unanimously voted\u00a0late last night in favor of a long-anticipated bill to facilitate the restitution of artworks looted during the colonial era, making good on a nearly decade-old pledge by president Emmanuel Macron<\/strong>. ARTnews<\/em> attended the lively late-night debate, where many lawmakers described the legislation as \u201cimperfect,\u201d yet still a meaningful step toward confronting France\u2019s colonial past and returning cultural goods that were unfairly, and often violently, seized in the 19th and 20th centuries. Why \u201cimperfect\u201d? A central issue is that the bill does not explicitly mention the word \u201ccolonialism,\u201d despite being conceived with that context in mind. Instead, it specifies that artworks looted between 1815 and 1972 are eligible for a fast-track restitution process to countries that submit formal requests. The issue remains politically charged. Conservative lawmakers argued that the bill could open a \u201cPandora\u2019s box\u201d of claims, potentially leading to a wave of restitutions and depriving the French public of prized national holdings. Far-right representative Florence Joubert<\/strong> also warned against approving requests \u201cfounded on the notion of repentance,\u201d underscoring ongoing tensions over how France interprets and addresses its colonial legacy. Stay tuned for our full report on the debate and what comes next as the amended bill moves toward becoming law.<\/p>\n GOLD FINGERS. <\/strong>A trial began today for three men accused of stealing an ancient golden helmet from the Drents Museum<\/strong> in the Netherlands while it was on loan from the National Museum of Romanian History<\/strong> last year, reports Dutch News<\/em>. The Co\u021bofene\u0219ti helmet<\/strong>, associated with the Dacian people and dating to the 5th\u20134th centuries BCE, was returned earlier this month along with two of the three stolen gold bracelets. Two of the defendants, Douglas W. and Jan B., reportedly struck a deal with authorities to return the artifacts, and today\u2019s proceedings are expected to shed light on the terms of that agreement. All three suspects are residents of Heerhugowaard in North Holland and are charged with blowing up a museum door before making off with the golden treasures in January 2025. The lawyer for the third suspect, Bernhard Z., maintains that his client was not present at the museum at the time of the theft.<\/p>\n The Digest<\/strong><\/p>\n Marina Abramovi\u0107<\/strong>\u00a0talks about her major retrospective in Berlin\u2019s Gropius Bau<\/strong> that explores eroticism and the body, plus how it ties into her childhood of feeling \u201cvery shy\u201d and \u201cextremely ugly.\u201d [Monopol Magazine]<\/p>\n \n\tCalifornia-based painter Criselda Vasquez<\/strong> says ICE<\/strong> has detained her father. [Hyperallergic]<\/p>\n President Trump<\/strong>\u2019s recent post of himself as a Christ-like figure is \u201cpoorly made and overwrought,\u201d and \u201cconveyed more meanings than the artist, or whoever fed prompts into the AI generator, intended,\u201d analyzes Philip Kennicott. [The Washington Post]<\/p>\n \n\tWhat was it like posing for\u00a0Frank Auerbach<\/strong>? Historian and curator Catherine Lampert<\/strong>\u00a0discusses her relationship to the artist whose catalogue raisonn\u00e9 she recently co-authored. [The Guardian]<\/p>\n \n\tIn time for Milan\u2019s Miart <\/strong>art fair held April 17 to 19, the Fondazione Fiera Milano<\/strong>\u00a0is offering a rare opportunity for the public to view a selection of its contemporary art collection, including works by Nicolas Party<\/strong>, Marisa Merz<\/strong>, and Monica Bonvicini<\/strong>. [Artribune]<\/p>\n The Kicker<\/strong><\/p>\n FALLEN IDOL<\/strong>. When sexual misconduct allegations surfaced about Cesar Chavez <\/strong>last month, including claims involving the abuse of young girls, San Francisco has been forced to reckon with the many murals depicting the Latino labor leader across the city, from schools to private homes. As KQED<\/em> reports, residents, some speaking through tears over a sense of personal betrayal, are grappling with whether to cover up these images with paint or even tarps. Yet even that response raises difficult questions. At an elementary school on Shotwell Street, for instance, a mural of Chavez remains on display, prompting filmmaker Rick Tejada-Flores<\/strong>, who knew Chavez, to ask: \u201cHow do you talk to the kids in that school? How do you frame that story?\u201d He believes the murals should be removed. Complicating matters further, Chavez is often depicted alongside other iconic human rights leaders, putting entire works at risk of alteration or removal. Ironically, Chavez himself appeared ambivalent about such public tributes. \u201cStatues are for pigeons to shit on. If you want to remember me, organize,\u201d he once said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/frances-lower-house-unanimously-backs-colonial-era-art-restitution-bill-trial-begins-in-stolen-golden-helmet-case-morning-links-for-april-14-2026-1234781147\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-2250075266.jpg?w=1024″] To receive\u00a0Morning Links\u00a0in your inbox every weekday,\u00a0sign\u00a0up\u00a0for our\u00a0Breakfast with ARTnews\u00a0newsletter. The Headlines HISTORIC VOTE. France\u2019s lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, unanimously voted\u00a0late last night in favor of a long-anticipated bill to facilitate the restitution of artworks looted during the colonial era, making good on a nearly decade-old pledge by president […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1883450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1883450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1883450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1883450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1883450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}